


dichotomy

by glueskin



Category: Tales of the Abyss
Genre: Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:22:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23340904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glueskin/pseuds/glueskin
Summary: ion, sync, and a few what-ifs.
Relationships: Fon Master Ion & Sync the Tempest
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	dichotomy

**Author's Note:**

> these three drabbles were originally written in 2015 and i dont think i posted them anywhere. i found them in my folders and decided to post them because why not.
> 
> i...should really replay tota someday. switch port when

# hope is the thing with feathers.

  
Despite the voices of his companions washing over him, Ion hasn’t felt quite so lonely since he was first created.   
  
It’s already been several hours but he can’t look away from his hand. Sync’s skin had been warm despite the way his touch had stung, unkind in its gesture of pushing him away—but despite his harsh words, Ion had seen the desperation in Sync’s wide eyes.   
  
He wanted to believe, too. That his life was worth something. That he existed as more than just Van’s means to an end.   
  
He curls his fingers, wondering what it might have felt like if Sync had grasped his hand in his own instead of slapping it away. If Sync would have sat beside him, here on the Albiore II, surrounded by the only family Ion has ever known—if he would have looked at them all, laughing, smiling, and understood that he didn’t need to be born to have bonds.   
  
The weight of Sync’s gold mask is heavy in his lap. He touches his fingers to the cool metal, flecked with his fellow Replica’s blood, and wonders if he could have done anything differently to help Sync hope.   
  
Someone touches his shoulder, jerking him into awareness; Luke’s mouth is drawn, eyes dark with concern.   
  
“Are you alright?” He asks, just barely loud enough to be heard over the hum of machinery and Anise’s latest argument with Jade.   
  
Ion looks down at the mask in his lap, his half curled fingers, and takes a deep breath.   
  
Luke understands. For once, Ion doesn’t smile and say he’s just fine; he looks back up, eyes wet, thinking of the expression on Sync’s face as he’d fallen backwards, the fabric of his torn clothes billowing like dark wings.   
  
“I think,” he says, voice shaking, “I will be. Because…I need to hope enough for him, too.”

* * *

# things you said when you thought i was asleep.

Despite what Anise must be thinking about back in Baticul, the God Generals don’t treat Ion harshly; they don’t cuff him, nor do they blindfold him or lock him in a cell. He’s given a small room, but it has a bed and the door is left unlocked.  
  
Still, he figures it might as well be a cell; they have a guard outside, after all.   
  
_Sorry, Anise,_ Ion thinks. _Sorry, everyone._ He’s always causing troubles for them—for everyone.   
  
Worst part of it is, he knows they’ll come for him. Though he’s glad they care enough to do so he still feels guilty, knowing he doesn’t deserve it.   
  
Feeling very tired and weighed down by guilt, Ion removes the ornaments from his hair and places them on the stand beside the bed, pulling his heavy robes over his head immediately after.   
  
He hangs the fabric on a chair by the window, toeing out of his shoes and climbing into the bed. The blankets are soft and worn and so is the pillow; it feels surprisingly comfortable and he wonders if he was given a room belonging to one of the Generals.   
  
Just as he begins to doze off, he hears a sharp knock at the door.   
  
Too weary to bother with it, he stays quiet, pulling the blankets a little further over his face. Predictably, the door creaks open a few seconds later.   
  
“Tch. Sleeping even though you’re surrounded by enemies? How soft.”   
  
The voice is familiar, one he’s heard just often enough to place—it’s Sync the Tempest.   
  
“Sir?” The guard stationed outside of Ion’s room asks, uneasiness evident in her tone.   
  
“You can go. I’ll take things from here.”   
  
A moment of hesitation from the guards end before Ion hears her heavy footsteps indicate her departure. The door closes and Ion doesn’t need to open his eyes to know Sync has entered the room—his footsteps are, unlike the armored guard, eerily silent…but Ion can still feel him.   
  
Sync stops just by the bed, not even a foot away. He’s trained well—Ion really can’t hear him at all, not the sound of his steps, the movement of his clothes or even his breathing.   
  
“You’re a real piece of work, _Fon Master_.”   
  
His tone is heavy and harsh. Ion doesn’t have to open his eyes to know he may very well be sneering, too; the way he says Ion’s title is as unkind as one can get.   
  
But then he hesitates. Sync clearly has something to say, but can’t bring himself to say it—after a moment, he just sighs, and when he steps back he’s unfocused enough that Ion can hear it.   
  
“Van says not to consider what it might have been like, had our positions been reversed,” Sync says, so quietly Ion almost misses a few words. “But it’s difficult.”   
  
Something like apprehension rises up in Ion—or maybe fear. Sync has a similar build to him, but he hadn’t thought much of it—his hair is the exact same color, too. Maybe Ion just hadn’t wanted to consider any of the others had survived.   
  
He was the seventh, after all. Mohs had said the other six had been culled, that he was the only one to survive—   
  
“Well, whatever. I guess there’s no point. I’d say sweet dreams, but honestly, I hope for the opposite in your case.”   
  
He leaves. Ion is so shocked he doesn’t even realize it until he hears the door open and close; when it does, he realizes the pressure he’s feeling on his chest is from lack of breathing, and sucks in a deep gulp of air.   
  
Sync had known he wasn’t asleep—he had to have. He’s a trained assassin. He would have definitely been able to tell that Ion was faking it, especially once he stopped breathing.   
  
What had he been trying to say? It was obvious he had wanted to say something else from the start—but what?   
  
And if Sync really is another replica of the original Ion…then what? There’s nothing he can do about it.   
  
_Nothing I can do_ , Ion thinks. He can never do anything right, not for himself or for others. He exists as nothing more than a puppet figurehead for the Order of Lorelai.   
  
He pushes his face into the pillow, squeezing his burning eyes shut.   
  
He’ll find a way to help everyone.   
  
Including Sync. 

* * *

# murmur.

  
In Belkend’s Fon Machine Laboratory, Sync finds himself uncomfortably surrounded by his grief-stricken enemies.   
  
_Allies_ , he corrects himself and it doesn’t feel right; nothing has felt right since something inside him had compelled him to take Ion’s hand down in the Core and he isn’t sure how to cope with the fact he’s allowed himself to end up in such a position.   
  
The only one of these people he feels anything aside from detached curiosity toward is Ion, who’s as weepy eyed as most of the others are.   
  
It feels wrong to just watch him without knowing what to say, so when Ion rubs the back of his hand against his eyes, Sync lets his gaze slide toward a nonspecific area of the wall. He can feel Jade the Necromancer’s eyes on him again, as they have been almost constantly since Ion had pulled Sync by the hand onto the Albiore II.   
  
_I shouldn’t have let him_ , Sync chides himself. He’s nothing but an empty shell of a person, easily replaced; he should have thrown himself into the depths of the Core, instead. He has no place here.   
  
Something touches his hand—if not for his training, Sync might have jumped out of his skin. Dropping his gaze, it’s Ion again, fingers thin and warm as they wrap around his own.   
  
“What the hell are you doing?” He asks, trying to keep his voice low so as not to be overheard. Ion’s shoulders are trembling slightly, he realizes, and when the other Replica raises his chin to meet Sync’s eyes, his pale face is reddened with the effort it’s taking him not to cry.   
  
“Thank you, Sync,” he says instead of answering, just barely loud enough to be heard over the perpetual noise of machinery. “For giving yourself a chance.”   
  
Sync almost jerks his hand away, chest tightening in an unfamiliar way; he feels something he’s never felt before, an emotion that clogs his throat and makes his stomach flip.   
  
Fear, maybe? He doesn’t know. It makes him sweat, though, unsure as Ion stares at him, unwavering.   
  
Sync wants so badly to hate him. He’s everything Sync could have been, but isn’t; a Replica with people who look at him like he’s a person, holding a seemingly innate kindness that makes him simultaneously sick to his stomach and envious down to his bones.   
  
Ion looks expectant, or something like it; Sync lowers his gaze down to the floor, unable to look at him any longer as he reminds himself to breathe.   
  
“Yeah,” Sync finally murmurs, voice far quieter than usual. He has nothing else to say—he doesn’t know _what_ to say—but Ion doesn’t seem to mind. For a moment Sync wonders if his voice had even been heard over the noise of the lab, but Ion squeezes his fingers just a bit tighter.   
  
If Sync squeezes back, well; nobody else has to know.

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact i love coffee and my username is glueskin


End file.
